MPD directed patrol unit (for Sunday)

Published 10:00 pm, Saturday, October 31, 2009

When suspects are developed, there is a specific team of six individuals and one sergeant at the Midland Police Department designed to target them until they are located.

"If I were a criminal, I wouldn't want them after me. Even when we interview criminals, they'll say they're their worst nightmare," said MPD Deputy Chief Jeff Darr.

Started in October 2006, the Directed Patrol Team (DPT) was designed to help authorities send out a squad to help pinpoint crime trends, to be proactive in trying to stop those trends and find those involved in the incidents.

Since it has started, police said, the program has helped the department so much they're looking to add a second squad once they're fully staffed.

"It's tremendously effective compared to before we had them," said MPD Lt. Layton Fincher who oversees the team.

Two members of the team are assigned to the force's gang squad; the rest work either undercover or with a partner to monitor auto or house burglary trends or to help find suspects.

When the department started using a crime statistic program -- called Com Stats -- in 2006, the DPT was an essential part in that development, having a unit designed specifically which officers can direct to a problem area.

The Com Stats program is a strategic planning process that helps officers identify what the city's problems are each week and where they can focus their efforts.

"If we focus our resources on a particular problem, we can make that problem go away," Darr said. "Whatever our biggest problems are is what we have them (the DPT) focusing on."

Officers assigned to DPT serve two-year terms each and are rotated out to either promotions to other departments such as K-9 or detectives or return to patrolling the streets.

It's a competitive spot, said Fincher, and officers must apply to the team as if they were applying for a new job, with a review process and interviews before the selection is made.

Each year, Darr said MPD officers are given a form to fill out to help them in their law enforcement career and development. Many officers apply to the DPT as a stepping stone, he said, to help better prepare them to be a detective or sergeant within the department.

Currently, those assigned to DPT work four days a week with a flexible schedule and on the days that they are most needed. A second squad would overlap and work the remaining days to provide coverage all week.

"I'd love to have two squads of them working seven days a week. I think it would be a tremendous benefit," Fincher said.

It's something Darr said the department is looking towards.

"We're always trying to make Com Stats better. We try to focus them (DPT) even more when crime trends develop," he said.